“It's funny,” Sebastian Stan says. “I saw J. J. Abrams at an Oscar party on Sunday night. And he goes, ‘Hey, nice to meet you.’ ” Only problem was, this wasn't the first time the two men had been introduced. “I was like: ‘Actually, I've met you before. I screen-tested for Star Trek. But that's okay. I wouldn't expect you to remember that.’ ”
Stan was in town for the Academy Awards—his most recent film, I, Tonya, was nominated in three categories—but despite playing Jeff Gillooly to Margot Robbie's Tonya Harding, he hadn't quite rated a ticket to the actual ceremony. He had been invited to some afterparties, though, and so there he was, talking to Abrams, one of the 10 or 20 most important creators in his industry.
He wasn't upset that Abrams didn't remember him, he says—he was just making a point about Hollywood, where, at 35, Stan has thrived in a way that is thoroughly modern. He's a guy with leading-man looks who has happily played supporting parts in films by Ridley Scott, Steven Soderbergh, and Darren Aronofsky. His most visible role is as Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, soon to be seen again in Avengers: Infinity War—part of the ever expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe, the most lucrative franchise in film history. He's leveraged the big movies to be in smaller, prestige films—“I never would've gotten I, Tonya without Marvel,” he says—and the prestige films have in turn made guys who make big movies, like Abrams, notice him anew.
It is a chilly evening in Los Angeles, and Stan is in a Koreatown restaurant dressed in local camouflage: black T-shirt, leather jacket, aerodynamic haircut. In another Hollywood era, he might've been a matinee idol. But he also knows that being a matinee idol is not what it used to be: “I went out for everything. I went out for John Carter of Mars, which ended up being my buddy Taylor [Kitsch], and then that movie was what it was,” which is to say, one of the most notorious box-office catastrophes of the century. As a working actor, Stan has, well—not struggled, but certainly contemplated the possibility of struggle. “I've had that phone call from my accountant that said, ‘I was about to call you to tell you that you're bankrupt. And then you just got a residual check in the mail for this movie Hot Tub Time Machine,’ you know?”
But Stan has also seen what traditional success looks like in the franchise era—becoming identified with a character and then playing that character over and over again. “And then you have to do something to break out of that. That was the thing about Heath Ledger I always loved. I think you kind of have to put yourself out there in a different way and not get in the obvious scenario. But maybe the obvious scenario sometimes brings you a lot of millions of dollars.” He notes that he'd missed out on a few of those obvious scenarios. “I don't know,” he says, laughing.
Perhaps by accident, Stan has found a different, more dynamic version of an enviable movie career: stable but under-the-radar franchise work and then more ambitious, creative swings in what downtime he gets. His deal with Marvel, he says, was for an astonishing nine films. “It is a wild thing to contemplate,” he says. “It's a little similar to the Old Hollywood system. But the thing is, there's no guarantee that nine movies will be made. There's so much that has to go into a movie being made each time.”
In fact, what's happened since he joined the Marvel universe has been fascinating. The films, which began with the classic studio glamour of Robert Downey Jr., as Iron Man, and Chris Evans, as Stan's co-star in the Captain America films, have begun to expand the definition of what a superhero can be. The two breakout comic-book hits of the past 12 months have been DC's Wonder Woman and Marvel's Black Panther. “I think a lot has changed,” Stan says. “I feel like over the next five years we're going to get some interesting movies that are going to be much, much more diverse than what we've seen probably in the last five years. And it's time. You know, I feel like the model you've seen—you know, the traditional movie—it's like, how much can you watch that film until you sort of can't?”
It's rumored that a bunch of the old-guard Marvel characters will die in Avengers: Infinity War—although probably not Stan's Bucky Barnes, who now seems set to inherit the franchise spotlight. In the meantime, Stan has been using his time off from Marvel to shoot Destroyer, an upcoming crime thriller directed by Karyn Kusama and starring Nicole Kidman: another supporting part, but a good one. It's the beginning of what Stan hopes will be a wave of opportunities following I, Tonya—opportunities that, unlike certain other films, don't come with expectations about the ideal size of the character's biceps. “I'm still hoping we get back to the Jack Nicholson days. He didn't seem to give a fuck at all.” Stan moves seamlessly into Nicholson's iconic, growling register: “He was like, You're gonna like me, no matter what.”
In 2018, it's easy enough to find futuristic fashion made of space-age fabrics. But it's also easier than ever to find tailoring that borrows everything good about '70s suits—wide lapels, powerful patterns, unexpected shades—and none of the garishness. Pairing them with sleek Chelsea boots and loud shirts brings them roaring into our maximalist fashion era.
Zach Baron is a GQ staff writer.
This story originally appeared in the May 2018 issue with the title "The Suit Stays in the Picture."
